Star Citizen players are in for a bit of a rude awakening today, if they’ve been enjoying the exploits of a bug discovered after the release of Alpha Patch 3.23.1. The bug led to the duplicating of in game currency. Apparently it was used so wide spread that 600 players have had their accounts banned. According to a Reddit thread on the subject, the in game currency was being sold to other users, for real money. This exploitative behavior is probably the most likely reason for the severity of the ban, but in their official response to the issue the developers said:

We’ve completed an investigation into multiple exploits within Star Citizen that compromised stability and negatively impacted the in-game economy. As a result, we have resolved multiple aUEC exploits in 3.23.1a, and we’ve identified and suspended over 600 accounts involved in exploitative behaviors while also removing the illicitly gained aUEC from the Star Citizen ecosystem.

Star Citizen is a in development multiplayer, space trading and combat simulation game. Born from the ashes of the never realized Freelancer, Star Citizen features first person shooter, massive multiplayer online, and space simulator genre characteristics. It explores these distinct genres through a module based system. Three of the modules are focused on one of the genres above, while the fourth combines them all. One of these modules has been unavailable since Alpha Patch 3.13.1a, which was released in late May, and there is no confirmed date for its return. The game’s development history has been long to say the least, and seems to be currently working through alpha testing and all the obstacles that entails. With the loss of 600 accounts, developers make a strong statement about their position on such issues in the future, and set the bar for what players can expect if they perform similar actions.